Help, Support, Bugs, Issue

What you can do yourself in case of problems and how to get further support

Help and Support

Your best bets for getting clarification on your question or problem are:

1. LiveTraffic has a help menu and it has [?] buttons in all windows. Use and click them! They bring you here, to the right page.

2. Search this documentation

   1. There is a search box in the top right corner. Just enter a few words. This documentation is very comprehensive, hoping to cover all usual aspects of operating LiveTaffic. Every question I have answered once is reflected in this documentation. Even a number of typical messages from the message area or your Log.txt are explained. So search for that error text!

   2. Check FAQ. You question might be frequently asked...and answered.

   3. Check the Known Issues. There is stuff I know about.

3. Check your Log.txt. The file Log.txt is created (and overwritten) at every startup of X-Plane in X-Plane's main directory where also X-Plane.exe/.app resides. It contains diagnostic information of X-Plane itself and all plugins. It is just a plain text file. Double click it...it will open in your standard text editor. You don't need to understand every line of it. If we talk about LiveTraffic then just search for lines starting with "LiveTraffic" (usually [Ctrl+F] starts a search). Chances are you find "ERROR" or even "FATAL" lines written by LiveTraffic. They will point you into the right direction. Every plugin author as well as Laminar will request this file when asked for help. So do I. To make it very clear-cut: No Log.txt, no help. I must have this file to be able to help you.

4. Ask for more help in the LiveTraffic Support Forum or Discord if none of the above helps. Other users might be able to help you. And also I check these channels often. I can't provide professional support...it's freeware in the end...but I'll do my best. Please provide the following no matter which channel to speed up helping you:

   1. 1. Descriptive Title so we know what it is about, can distinguish from others, allow people to help in topics they know about or find solutions to a similar problem they have themselves.

      2. Your X-Plane version, operating system, LiveTraffic version

      3. What are you trying to achieve? What's your goal?

      4. What did you already try getting there? Which tips did you apply? Or why does available documentation not apply to your case? (FAQ, Known Issues, full text search)

      5. What was your actual result? What did LiveTraffic (not) do?

      6. Attach your complete Log.txt, which you find in X-Plane's main directory. Remember: no Log.txt, no help. And attach the complete file, not just paste selected lines. The file contains valueable background info and events leading up to what you problem might be.

      7. If your issue is about visual aspects then add a screenshot, include an Aircraft Information Window on the aircraft in question in it. It includes often all I need to know. To show info on a selected aircraft just enter any identifying a/c info into the A/C key field (tail number, call sign, transponder code, squawk...) from the label. See documentation. And the First Steps would have taken you through this procedure starting in step 7.

      8. In summary: Provide all reasonable information. Don't make us ask for obvious things...if you want help then provide whatever you have.

Bugs, Defects, Problems, Issues, Suggestions

...are all welcome, provided, they come in a structured and informative way.

I will not follow up on issues like "I once saw an aircraft that...".

If you find a pattern, though, like "Using channel Abc, many planes around KXYZ, especially in the evening, tend to blablabla", then you would have time to switch log level to Debug, maybe even activate network raw data logging (Debug settings) and shoot some meaningful screenshot including an a/c info window. And then I might be able to follow up.

What to do immediately

When you find a problem there are a few things you do right away:

• [Shift-Space] takes a screenshot (which lands in the Output subdirectory of X-Plane), or sometimes even better:

• [Ctrl-Space] takes a video.

• If situation allows, open an A/C Info Wnd and display the a/c in question (the AUTO feature might come in handy), then do another screenshot with that information.

• Copy away Log.txt to a safe place and rename it aptly. Log.txt is overwritten on restart of X-Plane. Let's make it clear: No Log.txt, no bug analysis. As simple as that.

X-Plane quit unexpectedly

Even if X-Plane quits unexpectedly ("Crash to Desktop" or CTD) it usually writes a last line into Log.txt. So even then Log.txt is of help and needs to be provided. This last line indicates which plugin was the culprit...or if it was at the core of X-Plane. There are several pieces of software that provide your simulator experience. All could fail. If Log.txt ends with

Log.txt (last line)

--=={This application has crashed because of the plugin: LiveTraffic}==--

then chances are good that it really was LiveTraffic. In addition to this last line X-Plane writes crash dumps. They differ by operating system but are very valuable to a developer.

Windows

X-Plane writes crash reports into Output/crash_reports. The large .rpt files are - in its entirety - only readable by Laminar. A way smaller standard .dmp file is readable by any Windows debugger and would help a lot in analysing why the plugin LiveTraffic crashed, if the crash was inside LiveTraffic. If there is no .dmp file but only a .rpt file, then the .dmp file can be extracted from the .rpt file.

Due to the size please don't attach the .rpt file without being asked for it. The small .dmp file can be attached to any issue report right away.

Mac

When X-Plane crashes on a Mac then Mac OS pops up a question saying "X-Plane ... quit unexpectedly" offering three buttons. Please click the Report... button. A window with crash details opens. Please include a copy (select text as shown below and copy text to clipboard, no screenshots please) of the header information and the call stack of the first thread into a bug report:

Mac OS Problem Report, selected the section a bug report needs

Close the window with Don't Send button...Apple won't help me 😏

Filing a bug

Preferred channel for filing real bugs (not support questions!) etc. is LiveTraffic's Git Issue tracker. I have templates set up for bugs and features requests. Please use them and try to follow their structure and content requests. (I might as well just ignore other issues.) Also, Git will suggest other issue to you when you start entering a bug. Please have a look at the suggestions...it can be very frustrating to take the time to document a bug in full only to find it closed as a duplicate by me minutes later. If there is something similar rather check if it would be more helpful to add details to the existing issue as a comment. Even something simple like "Can confirm, see it as well" is helpful.